The Secret to Booking a Cruise at a Deep Discount

As you well know, a cruise ship is a gigantic floating hotel. In fact, modern cruise lines are building their ships bigger and better than ever, with sumptuous staterooms, pulsating nightlife, and even waterslides onboard.

As a result, cruises are costlier than ever. Well, for regular people, that is. Because people in the know get cruise cabins - with all the amenities - at a fraction of the cost.

How do they do this? Simple - they wait. They wait until the ship is almost ready to sail (say starting a month before departure), then they check online for unsold cabins and scoop one up at a great price.

So how does this happen?

It happens because cruise lines do not like any empty rooms on the ship. This is because the ship is sailing - full or not. And "not being full" means the cruise lines lose revenue. So when it gets close to the departure date, the cruise lines offer unsold rooms at deep discounts.

And here's the trick

The cruise lines don't do this on their own websites (after all, doing that would make "full-fare" passengers mad). They instead partner with third-party websites that specialize in selling unsold room cheap. All you have to do is search for these sites (they advertise heavily, so that should be no problem.) And as long as you have a little flexibility in your vacation schedule (like leaving in a few days to a few weeks), you can get a cruise much cheaper than if you booked with the cruise line themselves.

All it takes is a little bit of patience, and a little bit of know-how. Then throw in a little bit of flexibility (because these rooms are not available all that far in advance), and you have the cheapest vacation possible.